If the weather is just right, he makes shot at home

By CHRIS PETERSON

Hungry Horse News

At first glance, you might think it was mercury, streaming into a bucket of steaming water.

But that is no mercury and that is no water. It’s lead, melted on a special device. And as it streams into BBs, it drops into hot brake fluid, where it will eventually be rinsed and made into shotgun pellets.

It takes a special summer day to make shotgun pellets from lead, notes Anthony D’orazio — not too hot, not too cold.

The air temperature has to be between 65 and 75 degrees. Too cold and the lead doesn’t flow well. Too hot and the lead just runs, instead of making shot.

Over the course of years, trial and error, D’orazio has perfected the art of making shot with his Littleton Shot Maker.

He needs to, he uses a lot of shot.

D’orazio is also a competitive trap shooter and he loads all his own shotgun shells.

The Littleton will make lead shot in sizes from 2 to 7 1/2. In the world of shotgun shot, 2 is relatively big, while 7-1/2 is pretty small.

Once the shot has cooled in the brake fluid, he cools it completely, and then rinses it off, so he can use it in shotgun shells. By changing the dies in the Littleton, he can control the size.

The process takes a few hours. He gets his lead from old wheel weights and what he can find at garage sales.

D’orazio is a mechanic by trade, so wheel weights are fairly easy to come by. Bulk lead, not so much.

D’orazio takes his shooting seriously, he uses a Kreighoff K-80 shotgun, one of the premier guns made for the sport.

But making the shot itself is a far less tense affair. It’s something to do an a perfect sunny day when the temperature is just right on a Saturday morning in Columbia Falls.